Big Eddy, Waitsville, Vermont

Susan and I scoured all the local literature to find places of interest in Vermont - we were not disappointed!

We drove from Morrisville to Waterbury and visited The Cold Hollow Cider Mill. I got a lovely tea towel to hang on my oven door and some spiced cider "tea" bags. I bought us the now favourite maple coffee, although hazelnut comes a close second! Ben and Jerry's factory was opposite and we resisted the notion to take a tour!

HOwever, on the front of the tour book we had was a picture of the most beautiful quaint place called Waitsville and we so wanted to visit. It looked to be full of cute shops, a covered bridge, coffee shops and antiques stores. Well, upon arrival I looked again at the cover picture - where were all these shops and quaintness? All we could see was a long street with very little quantiness or visitor action!

We treid for a coffee but the hillbilly gent only had flasks on a counter and told us to help ourselves - if we had our cups!! We left but followed his vague directions to the coffee shop - it must have closed for we never did find it!

We parked and had an amble. The shop we went into certainly was set up for tourists - the prices were exorbitant and it was very arty farty (off the wall style!). I spotted a wonky staircase with two wee shops upstairs so off we went. Imagine our surprise to walk into a shop that sold designer chalkboards to order - none for sale, to find the same picture as was on the front of the tour book -but it was an oil painting and the lady selling chalkboards had painted it! The front of the tour book was a very clever reproduction of the painting. She explained to us, proudly, that she had taken every aspect of Waitsville and created a montage of the town....that was before the floods in 2010 - see here!

Anyway - I got to see my first covered bridge - Big Eddy, built in 1833 and it was the first one to be built in the States! Here is my sister Susan posing - the river is called the Mad River!

We left having a giggle about our dashed hopes and headed back to Stowe for lovely coffee and guaranteed lovely shops and good coffee. Stowe is beautiful and my favourite place to visit so far. On the way there, we passed an antique store - well I have not laughed so much in a long time. it was stuffed with utter junk. A man came in and bought a 3in1 oil can!!! I found a kitchen cabinet - complete with cheese crackers in it - all broken and nibbled by mice! There were tears running down our faces - and the owner just could not understand why we were so upset as we left!

I will add other photos of this day to my Blipfolio in time.